


Push and Pull

by Veridique



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Ballroom Dancing, M/M, Trans Taako (The Adventure Zone), even good couples fight sometimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 10:27:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17078591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veridique/pseuds/Veridique
Summary: Taako has never followed anyone in his life. Kravitz is more than pleased to be his first.





	Push and Pull

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a simple fluff fic about Taako and Kravitz dancing, inspired by the fantastic west coast swing of [Igor Pitangui and Rayane Calixto](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f2gEY3dF3I), and ended up being...slightly more serious than that. But I'm pleased with it nonetheless.

Ballroom dance events are always awkward when you’re queer.

Not the expectation that men will dance with women—in this day and age, even the most narrow-minded would never think to cause a scene at the sight of two men or two women dancing a foxtrot together (although god help you if you mistake a foxtrot for a tango).

No, the unease comes from the question that follows “Would you like to dance?” for queer couples, the one that straight couples never seem to have to bother with. 

_Do you lead or follow?_

It’s vaguely the same in a hookup context, Taako supposes, but different. Easier to whisper “Top or bottom?” to the stranger you’ve got pressed up against the filthy wall of the bathroom of a dive bar, easier to press a final kiss to their neck and part ways if your answers are incompatible, and anyway, Taako’s never had much problem going either way in sex.

But dancing.

He’s always led, going all the way back to long ago on another plane of existence with his sister, spinning her around as many times as his shoulder and her inner ear could stand. Once, an adolescent Taako with more gumption than common sense had mustered up the courage to approach Timothy Marblemaul, the prettiest dwarf in town, and asked him for the pleasure of a waltz. Later, Taako almost wished Timothy had said no.

Because what happened was that Timothy had said yes. Timothy had walked out onto the dance floor with Taako. Timothy faced the line of dance and placed his hand on Taako’s left shoulder blade.  


Timothy intended to lead.

And Taako had never learned to follow.

He doesn’t quite remember what happened—whether he attempted to learn to follow on the spot, or whether he slunk off the floor in shame. Either way, he remembers the humiliation, and the harsh lesson that rushing in doesn’t end well. Better to stay outside, hedge your bets. Nothing can hurt you that way.

In another love story, the kind that bards tell by candlelight late at night in taverns when the drunks have fallen asleep and the just-the-other-side-of-tipsy ones are hankering for a good sappy story, all that would have changed when he met Kravitz. He would have rushed in and fallen deep and fast. He would have danced with Kravitz without once worrying about who would lead and who would follow, because the power of love would triumph over all.

Taako’s story is many things, but a love story is not one of them.

Taako’s story goes like this: he met a handsome man and did not fall in love. He went on a date (if what happened at the Chug and Squeeze was, in fact, a date) and did not fall in love. He went on a second and a third date, and he talked to this handsome man, and he kissed this handsome man, and he did not fall in love.

In fact, Taako only falls in love in retrospect. It’s only after months and months have passed, when Taako is chopping carrots for dinner, and Kravitz comes home and tosses his keys into the bowl by the door and kisses Taako’s cheek on his way to the bathroom, that Taako realizes that he’s been in love with Kravitz for god knows how long. 

It’s sometime after this realization that Taako brings up dancing.

The first time Taako mentions his old hobby of dancing with Lup as children, Kravitz immediately jumps up from the couch, pulling Taako with him by the hand, and arranges them in a two-hand hold, with Kravitz in the lead position. It’s a perfect mirror of all those years ago, with Timothy Marblemaul.

But unlike Timothy, Kravitz notices when Taako freezes.

“I’m sorry,” he says immediately, pulling his right hand off Taako’s back, cupping the bottom of Taako’s deltoid with his left hand, slipping into the follower’s position as easily as breathing. “I just assumed you followed.”

And maybe a younger Taako, or a more blasé Taako, a Taako who was doing just fine on the outside looking in, would have accepted this at face value. He would have pressed his right palm against Kravitz’s back, and they would have danced the night away, and Kravitz’s comment would be forgotten.

But Taako’s different now. The old habits of holding himself away and apart from emotional intimacy die hard, but Taako needs to let them die. He needs to kill them. He has something to lose now.

He doesn’t know how Kravitz will respond, or how this conversation will go. He doesn’t even know what he’s going to say, really.

But Taako rushes in.

“Why?”

“Why what?” Kravitz softens his hold on Taako’s arm.

“Why did you assume I followed?”

Oh god. They’re having _this_ conversation. They’ve danced around it a few times, with Kravitz saying something without thinking it through and then backpedaling as soon as Taako questioned him. But the conversation needs to happen.

Because, while Taako isn’t Kravitz’s first boyfriend, he is Kravitz’s first trans boyfriend.

“I mean, I just…” Kravitz is clearly no more comfortable than Taako, and probably even less so. “You said you danced with Lup when you were kids, and I figured back then…”

_Back then. When you were a girl and Lup was a boy._

Kravitz doesn’t say those words, of course, but Taako hears them all the same. He’s heard them countless times, in unspoken whispers and noncommittal hand gestures by people who aren’t sure how to speak in the past tense about someone whose gender appears to them to be a present-tense-only phenomenon.

“Lup’s always been my sister,” he starts, “and I’ve always been her brother.”

“I know that!” Kravitz blurts. “I just figured…because people saw you as…I thought you probably learned the follower’s part.”

“Okay, so that’s another thing.” He’s never called Kravitz out directly like this before; the almost-conversations they’ve had have taken the form of gentle suggestions and equivocations. But if what they have is worth anything, Taako reasons, it’s worth fighting for. Or over. “Even if people perceived me as a girl, that doesn’t mean I had to learn the follower’s part. You know both parts, clearly.”

“Taako, I didn’t mean that.” Kravitz’s voice is low, apologetic. The tone makes Taako want to kiss him and tell him all’s forgiven. 

But he can’t do that. He has something to lose.

“I know you didn’t mean anything by it. I’m not mad at you.” He isn’t sure he’s telling the truth until he says it, but he really isn’t angry with Kravitz. “I just need you to understand what I’m saying and where I’m coming from.”

“I do. And I’m sorry. It’s just…” Kravitz pulls out of the close connection, eyes averted. “There’s a lot I don’t know about…this stuff.”

“Then ask.” 

“I do, sometimes. But I know you hate when people ask you question after question like you’re the world expert on transness who’s just there for their education.”

“This is different.”

“Is it? How?”

“Because I _am_ the world expert on _my_ transness. And when you don’t know something about _my_ transness, I want you to ask.” His words are a runaway train now, and he’s not about to try and brake. “I want my goddamn happy ending, and we can’t have that unless we talk.”

“I’m scared I’ll fuck it up—”

“Then fuck it up!” Taako isn’t yelling, not quite, but his voice is forceful. “You fuck it up, and then we talk, and then next time, you won’t fuck it up as bad. And then I’ll fuck something up, and we’ll talk, and then I’ll learn how to not fuck it up as bad next time. That’s how this goes, Kravitz.” After decades sharing a small ship with Lup and a bunch of morons on the mission from hell, Taako knows a thing or two about communication. 

Kravitz extends one hand to Taako, long fingers outstretched. “Can I try again?”

“Please.”

“May I have this dance, Taako?” There’s no music playing, but Kravitz doesn’t seem to care.

“Of course.”

“Would you like to lead or follow?”

“I’ve never followed before.”

“Would you like to?”

And suddenly, the challenge is turned around on Taako.

Because while he’s never been a stickler for traditional masculinity—he and Lup swap clothes as often as they did when they were children—the idea of dancing the follower’s part feels like a betrayal of the presentation he’s worked so hard to cultivate. It’s partly because dancing is such a social, public activity—he’d be fine with dancing any way at all with Kravitz in their home, but the point of learning to dance is to show off. But more importantly, dancing the follower’s part means _following._ It means relinquishing control, allowing himself to be moved and turned and pushed and pulled and shown off according to his leader’s whims. It means moving backwards, trusting his leader to watch behind him and keep him safe. And Taako is a man who watches after his own shit.

And he knows that Kravitz will accept a _No._ This is not the hill their relationship will die on.

But that means he has nothing to lose.

He traces his fingers over the top of Kravitz’s outstretched hand, golden-tipped fingers curling over the top of Kravitz’s deep brown ones.

“I might fuck it up,” he warns.

Kravitz applies pressure, creating the perfect amount of tension in their frame. “Then fuck it up,” he replies.


End file.
